I. Field
The present disclosure relates generally to communication, and more specifically to acquisition techniques for a wireless communication system.
II. Background
Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various communication services such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, etc. These systems may be multiple-access systems capable of supporting communication for multiple users by sharing the available system resources. Examples of such multiple-access systems include Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) systems, Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) systems, Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA) systems, Orthogonal FDMA (OFDMA) systems, and Single-Carrier FDMA (SC-FDMA) systems.
A wireless communication system may include many base stations that support communication for many terminals. A terminal (e.g., a cellular phone) may be within the coverage of zero, one, or multiple base stations at any given moment. The terminal may have just been powered on or may have lost coverage and thus may not know which base stations can be received. The terminal may perform acquisition to detect for base stations and to acquire timing and other information for the detected base stations. The terminal may use the acquired information to access the system via a detected base station.
Each base station may send transmissions to assist the terminals perform acquisition. These transmissions represent overhead and should be sent as efficiently as possible. Furthermore, the transmissions should allow the terminals to perform acquisition as quickly and robustly as possible.